Flacks Are People, Too

Bank's Twitter Q&A turns into an embarrassing public-relations disaster, and so does the president's broken promise about health-care policies.

Spare, if you will, a moment of pity for the PR people. That may sound surprising coming from these quarters, given journos' near-universal disdain for public-relations folks, many of whom see their function as obstructing or obfuscating on behalf of their bosses. But after the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad week the spinmeisters had, even we stone-hearted, ink-stained wretches must have some sympathy.

Consider the PR genius at JPMorgan Chase (ticker: JPM) who came up with the idea of a Twitter (TWTR) Q&A with...